


Ode

by soldierspy (hinterland)



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan), Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-03
Updated: 2013-11-03
Packaged: 2017-12-31 08:56:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1029771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hinterland/pseuds/soldierspy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is what Bane is to Talia. (A follow-up to Primer.)</p><p>→ You are nameless, but occasionally you are Bane, the beast formed in darkness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ode

I will write sonnets to the salt of sweat  
on your skin. I will write novels to the scar  
of your nose. I will write a dictionary  
of all the words I have used trying  
to describe the way it feels to have finally,  
finally found you.

**Clementine von Radics** , "Mouthful of Forevers"

 

You are nameless, but occasionally you are Protector. What is the winter bite of the Pit when your arms hold her close? The ravenous eyes of a prisoner, glassy with intent as they track her progress across the cells, burst like grapes beneath your thumbs.   
  
You are nameless, but occasionally you are Teacher. Like you, she is a beast formed in darkness, but the young must be taught how to see and you open her vision even as she fills yours with wonder. You give her your learning, such as it is: the prayers, the patois, the carefully wrought shapes that form her name. Love, yes; you teach her that too, the love of the extension of self.  _We are the same._  
  
You are nameless, but sometimes you are Student. You learn, finally, what despair tastes like, even if it comes with the joy of seeing her disappear into the world above. You relearn joy when she returns for you. You always knew the sound of her footfall, but you learn it now while truly blind, face so swollen from surgery that you cannot blink, can barely breathe unaided.   
  
You learn how she is no longer child, no longer  _warlord’s castoff_ , but woman-king, demanding and hungry for what is her due. You lie awake at night after the hours of disciplined abuse at the hands of the master’s men, and your own hands have all of that discipline, if none of the abuse, as you spread them over the aching muscles of your love. Sometimes she protests, but you know she will be stiff come morning if the knots and strains are not worked out, and she submits, because you are Teacher and Protector and you have nursed those limbs since infancy.   
  
Then comes the night when she resists again, but this time, it is not because she denies any pain. Her hands (and they are callused now, hard) take yours from where they press against her shoulders; she pillows her head on your biceps while pushing your other hand to the place between her legs. The tension of her thighs breaks; there is a tremulous sigh as you touch her, and you learn again the sound of your name, even though in this place, you are nothing but the shadow.  
  
You are nameless, but occasionally you are Bane, the beast formed in darkness. The exile. Your mercy is that of a neck wrenched out of position: quick and hard. You speak the language of ruin; you are brutality, bare. You fight because that is what you know, what you are, what you breathe. You fight because she is waiting for you.


End file.
